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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DS, currently a high school freshman, has been all in on coding for a long time. He's regularly engaged in high-level chats with the guy who wrote Python, has had his projects featured in podcasts and newsletters, has companies paying him to use his work, and has written a program that is part of Python's standard library. BUT, this is all he wants to do. He doesn't play sports; he participates in one extracurricular. He refused to join the coding club. His grades are good (mostly As).

Should I be tiger momming him to do more, or just let him do what he loves? He's happy (has a good group of friends and is a normal sweet kid at home), but I don't want to fall down on the job.[/quote]USACO Plat is a very impressive achievement, especially if he ends up wanting to go somewhere like CMU, and if he makes it to the IOI training camp then MIT becomes a realistic option. Those are schools where a large portion of his classmates will be at or above his level.

That being said, he's probably good enough to get to that level even if he starts next year; that's the point I would start hand-wringing. (Sophomore year is the point where kids should start to take their future seriously IMO, and that includes planning for college admissions).

Aside from competition programming, maybe have him look into Google's Summer of Code? That seems like it might be more appealing to him than competition programming. (but he should be exposed to both so he can make an educated decision, of course)[/quote]

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